Tolerance cannot be measured in terms of degrees of intolerance. I am essentially opposed to burning books even when they incite others to violence. But freedom is either an absolute or it is conditioned on not inciting others to violence. Anything else is rationalized bigotry.

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Saturday, July 28, 2012

Iran and the Sad Israeli Press.

I read with bored curiosity the
latest front page news from Ynet (an Israeli Internet news outlet) about Iran and how the leadership, having
congratulated those who carried out the terrorist atrocity against the Israeli
tourists in Bulgaria
are now accusing the ‘Zionist Regime of having plotted and executed the
attack’. What never fails to surprise me
is the volume of space we willingly provide for the noxious views of lunatics
and racists so that we may sell the news more readily.

Israel's press through the 1970’s and
1980’s retained a reputation for being incisive and was well considered
internationally. Today, its’ Paparazzi
have a reputation for being the rudest and most aggressive anywhere and populism
(Left and Right are equally guilty of this) seems to be the only common theme
to excite those that publish to inform the general public.

When Gilad Shalit was kidnapped
by militant (terrorist) forces in Gaza
it was not newspaper pressure that eventually led to his release but the
justified fear that he would soon die in his underground and windowless prison
cell, at which point his value as a pawn would vanish with his last breath.

Every idiotic utterance by Israel’s
enemies makes front page news. With respect to the banana republics out there I
am sure some of them have more clarity of vision than Israel’s English
language press.

A few facts about Iran
follow. Iran is a theocratic nation with a
very strong vision of what it thinks Utopia should look like. There are no gays
and no infidel in Iran’s
heaven. All women (and girls) lie on their backs for their men in this world of
peace and justice. All Jews are killed
(so says the appropriate Koranic verse about nature rising up to expose the
hidden man, woman or child who once revealed will then of course be murdered). The Koran is rather strident in its timeless
devotion to world conquest, slavery and ridding the planet of non-believers. Iran under its
Shiite leadership is brazenly unembarrassed that it enthusiastically embraces
this primitive and barbaric theology. It
is happier with its sexual obsessions and male domination than it is with
social justice. Equality is not even open to discussion unless it is to
reassure Iran’s
sycophants in the West who would prefer to not ask the question in the first
place.

Iran is a country whose leaders
allegedly believe that the 12th Imam (Muhammad’s twelfth and final successor)
also known as the Mahdi, will arise in our time and bring peace to all mankind
– but in what is referred to as Twelver Shiism the portents for this messianic
eschatology (end of days) is that two thirds of the world’s population will have
to die by violence and disease (half by each). The current President Mahmud Ahmadinejad
is on record as believing that furthering chaos and human suffering around the
globe will expedite the Mahdi’s return.
From an ethical point of view this has to be on the same level as the
murderer who ‘sacrifices’ other human beings ‘for Islam’ being entitled to 72
virgins in the afterlife (god help the women).

Why, when we know that Reason is
not a priority for the Iranian Leadership, do the newspapers bother to
publicise their rants? Why print this
stuff? We dignify their obscenity by airing their propaganda.

I propose a tax on every
newspaper sold and on every Internet page viewed – the proceeds to go towards
the secular education system. That way
perhaps people can be taught to differentiate between what is news and what is front
page filler; between what requires public attention and what is pap.

Will the Iranian regime and their
acolytes continue to air their foul views and supply weapons to our enemies in
order to destroy us? Of course they will. But by advertising their repugnant
views we supply legitimacy to them even if only the occasional vulgar bigot
listens and believes them.

If we must dignify their comments
by reporting on them then please, let us set aside a section for anti-Semites
and other dregs of society towards the middle of the news, next to adverts for toilet
cleaners, dyspepsia tablets and Ex-Lax.